To achieve this effect, the young chestnut stem was subjected to a process known as "distressing". A distressing tool is used to punch a series of evenly-spaced little circles through the soft young bark. (A drawing of the tool can be found in Theo Fossell's "Walking & Working Sticks".) The stem is then left to grow to walking stick size. By this time the chestnut's defence mechanism has produced lesions in the wood to seal the injuries against loss of vital fluids and ingress of unfriendly micro-organisms. The resulting scars look very much like natural knots in the wood.

This process was most commonly applied to sweet chestnut, but I do have an example of oak which has been similarly treated. Congo Pearl is often mis-identified as cabbage stalk, but only by those who have never seen the amazing giant walking stick cabbage of the Channel Islands.

The cap has some slight damage. It had originally been secured with a small pin or nail, but I suspect the wood may have shrunk somewhat, loosening the cap which then got a bit chewed-up in chafing against the pin. Subsequently the cap appears to have been fixed firmly in place with some sort of adhesive or filler.

The wood itself is in fine fettle. It has a lovely deep patina; the Congo Pearl effect is possibly the best I've seen - there are four columns of knobbles, all very regularly spaced and evenly-formed. The shank is dead straight side-to-side and there's just the very slightest curve fore-and-aft, the bow being towards the handle, so that when weight is applied to the handle the shank straightens nicely, transferring the weight directly down the shaft. Perfect, quite possibly by design.